"The idea that there's a new consumer class and you have to be consumer-friendly when they're stealing stuff. No. There should be the same level of sanctity as there is around property. Content is no different. They're not crazy kids. No. Punish them."
These guys must be light headed from their flying or high.
The same laws protecting their current content also protects it anywhere regardless if its on the internet, in a shop or where ever else it is.
If you build a shop without walls you can expect people to come walking in and steal things but complaining about it and trying to get governments todo something about people stealing from your wall-less/window-less shop is a bit rich.
Why should governments do anything? If these corporations want to stop piracy they should protect their content better, Its not the governments job to protect a private citizins or company's work or property.
If the government does this then everyone and their dog will be paying to protect these corporations interests at our expense, They already require restrictive DRM conten so what else do they want and what are they really after?
Hi DMEX
while of course you are right -- BUT a HUGE amount of the problem is caused by the restrictive nature placed on the use of products you've downloaded or purchased legally.
Of course you can present some legal argument to say that the consumer has agreed to the restrictive nature of the rights when purchasing the software etc but how would you feel about it if you bought a book that said you can ONLY read it in ONE BUS and that BUS is a 68 leaving xxxx at 17.10 on thursday evenings.
A lot of music / films have essentially very similar tightly controlled restrictions on them and it's THIS more than anything that causes a lot of piracy.
Stopping a few sub teens from copying files won't solve the problem -- it's large scale piracy emanating from China, Russia, Vietnam, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan that the producers should fear most.
Remove most of the DRM and restrictive use, price the products fairly, avoid staggered releases and problem is 90% solved.
You'll never eliminate piracy completely but if you can kick the pros into touch then you've solved the biggest problem.
You don't need to have a bigger than peanut sized brain to realize with face book, you tube etc etc that releasing a movie or TV program in one country MONTHS before another just doesn't work anymore.
These old models might have worked years ago but with fast instant world wide Internet access the rules have changed.
In anycase whatever the movie / music industry does it won't stop file sharing -- even old fashioned Dinosaur technology will defeat Internet "snoopers" and the latest technology too -- people will just copy to media like DVD's / USB's etc etc and either "Swap" at school / club/ bar / work or use old fashioned "Snail Mail".
I'm sure it's the same in 'OZ - but in most countries even the Hand of God couldn't find an item of post once it's been sucked into the mail system until its been spewed out at the other end.
cheers
jimbo
